I’ve been taking free online courses in the biology of human behavior.  This is the third time that I’ve gone through this course and I learn so much more every time that I retake it.  I am just fascinated with the way that our behavior is created by tiny neurons, functioning neurotransmitters, and enhanced by myelin insulation.  I’ve learned that these physical properties have far more impact on how someone behaves than their environmental surroundings.  At the same time, their environmental surroundings can have a profound impact on the proper functionality of these same physical mechanisms.

Overview and Background

Neuron

To get to the point of my idea, I must first explain the problem that it hopes to resolve.  Neurotransmitters are simply modified amino acids that fit nicely like a lock and a key into receptors in neighboring axon terminals.  For this example, I’ll use the neurotransmitter called Dopamine.

Dopamine is used differently in different parts of the brain.  In one area of the brain, a deficiency of dopamine would cause Parkinson’s disease while too much in another area is said to be a major cause of schizophrenia.  This is why one of the side effects of drugs that treat schizophrenia patients is the symptoms very similar to Parkinson’s.  In the area of the brain where Parkinson’s is affected, the dopamine is used to create smooth and controlled muscle movements.  Too much of this neurotransmitter leads to seizures and jerky muscle controls.

Today, this is just the risk that one takes when treating these types of neurological diseases.  Specialists must carefully decide between inhibiting the uptake of naturally made neurotransmitters, blocking the receptors in synopsis, or inhibiting the re-uptake of the transmitters after they are released by the receptors.  Each of these tactics still risk the serious side effects of throwing their Parkinson’s patient into schizophrenia or their schizophrenia patient into seizures.

My Thoughts and Idea

So, on my way to work this morning, I was pondering this problem as I was playing with the GPS on my iPhone.  The two thoughts collided somewhere in my medial prefrontal cortex and I had one of those “AH Ha!” moments.  As stated above, the problem with these drugs is that they swamp the entire brain with their effects, causing a boost in dopamine in the area where it’s needed while creating too much in areas where there are normal amounts.

What if we could tell the drug to only be active in a certain area of the brain?  What better way to do this than GPS?  If you don’t know, GPS locations are found by listening to satellites that are orbiting the Earth but are always at the same location relative to the earth.  These satellites are positioned strategically in a pattern that allows a receiver on the surface to triangulate it’s position to a matter of inches depending upon the quality of the receiver.

What if we could implant into a Parkinson’s patients skull strategically placed transmitters that provide much the same technology as a GPS satellite?  And what if, through the wonders of nanotechnology, we could encapsulate these neurotransmitters into little pods that only open up at a certain GPS location in the brain?

If we could pull this off, we could finely tune the release of the dopamine (or other neurotransmitters) to exactly the location of the brain that is responsible for muscle movement while sparing this from other areas where it can cause harm.  This would virtually eliminate these side effects!

Expansion of This Thought

So, why not take this even one step higher?  Some day, people could choose to have these “GPS” implants put under their skin and placed all over their body.  Every drug could be encapsulated inside these nanopods that would take the drug to exactly the part of the body that needs it and spare the rest of the body.  Drug side effects would be virtually eliminated across the board and new treatments should explode onto the market for things that we’ve never been able to do because we couldn’t target a specific area before.

Conclusion

So, this is my dream future for medicine.  I don’t know if someones already working on this idea in a top secret pharmaceutical lab somewhere.  I could only hope.  The fast talking low volumed voice actor that rattles off the side effects on commercials would need to find something else to do for a living.